Regimes and Opportunity

Neil Lund

2024-10-08

Recap

Opportunity Structures: Kitschelt identified “input” structures and “output” structures as key variables for shaping the trajectory of anti-nuclear movements.

Are there more dimensions to consider here?

Opportunity Structures

(adapted from McAdam, Doug; McCarthy, John D.; Zald, Mayer N.. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings)
Charles Brockett	Hanspeter Kriesi	Dieter Rucht	Sidney Tarrow
Access points	Institutional structures	Access to the party system	Openness of the polity
Elite fragmentation	Informal conflict resolution procedures	Actor-specific alliance structures	Stability of political alignments
Level of repression	Configuration of power regarding specific challengers	Actor-specific conflict structures	Elite divisions

Expanding the scope

Kitschelt looks at diversity among a set western democracies, what changes when we extend the scope outside that region/set of regimes?
We need to simplify, but how much is too much?

Tilly’s regime types

Capacity refers to the state’s ability to affect the distributions of populations, actions, resources, etc. (state power/efficacy)
Democracy two generalizations:
- Democracies tolerate a wider repertoire of dissent
- Democracies offer more access points where people can influence politics

Democracy and protest

Democracies are more likely to have tolerate peaceful protest, but even authoritarian states are likely to have some peaceful demonstrations (as well as some violent ones)

State capacity and protest

The associations are less obvious for state capacity, but in general poorer states are less likely to see sustained peaceful protest
Importantly, democracy and capacity tend to covary, so its harder to find “high capacity autocracies”

High Capacity Democracies

Examples: Contemporary U.S., France, Germany etc.
Explicit or implicit legal protections for protest
Mechanisms for peaceful transitions or change in policy
Ability to effectively repress transgressive contention and reward compliance

Low Capacity Democracies

Examples: Jamaica, Tunisia, Ukraine, Brazil*
- States can’t always effectively use repression, but may fear public opinion.
- High levels of activity, including some violence, but with concessions from the state

Low Capacity Autocracies

Examples: Yemen, Burma
- States may lack the capacity to repress effectively, but also they don’t offer concessions
- Protests often evolve into civil war and revolutions

High Capacity Autocracies

Examples: China, Hungary*, Iran
- There’s an (imperfect) correlation between state capacity and democracy, so these are comparatively more rare
- Contention happens, but it rarely threatens (and sometimes strengthens) the state.

Fu, Diana. “Disguised collective action in China.” Comparative Political Studies 50.4 (2017): 499-527.

Thinking about repression

All states use repression!
But they vary in terms of their willingness, ability to use it, the actions and groups they repress.

“I no longer wanted to fight. At whom was I going to fire? At children and youths who did not completely realize what they were doing?” - Maximiliano Hernández Martínez (president of El Salvador from 1935 - 1944)

Quoted in: Brockett, Charles D.. Political Movements and Violence in Central America (Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics) (p. 199). Cambridge University Press.